Tinder couple meet three years after messaging each other – and they did it on TV

Enthusiastic fan of Jilly Cooper, books, horses and singing. Not a made-up person.

Wednesday 26 July 2017

A couple who have been messaging each other on Tinder for THREE YEARS finally met IRL – on national TV.

ABC

Josh Avsec and Michelle Arendas had been chatting together for a loooooong time (and in Tinder terms that's basically what, 17 years?) as part of a running joke which started after Michelle took a while to reply to Josh's first message.

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They'd each wait a few months to reply to the next message, and their pen pal affair caught the attention of Tinder staff when Josh posted some of their exchanges on Twitter – and Michelle replied.

Hahahaha one day I'm going to meet this girl and it's going to be epic. Look at the dates of our tinder texts. pic.twitter.com/DASQK4c5cX

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Tinder offered to fly the couple, who are both students at the same university in Ohio YET HAVE NEVER MET (presumably American universities are a bit bigger than in Britain), to the city of their choice for their first date – they picked Maui in Hawaii because really, why wouldn't you?

But first they agreed to meet for the first time on Good Morning America, so no pressure there – and it was actually totally adorable!

Before meeting, Josh and Michelle stood behind partitions and answered questions about themselves; a bit like Blind Date with a much bigger budget.

Josh dressed up in shirt and tie for the occasion (good man) and when he finally got to meet Michelle he gave her a big hug, and said, "I'm blushing like crazy!"

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Michelle explained why she let the joke carry on (and obviously because it was lols). "I’m stubborn and I wasn’t going to be the one to ruin a good joke like that. I’m stubborn and I’m committed to my sense of humour, that was definitely it for me. I didn’t want to be the one to break the joke."

Here's hoping that first date is an absolute winner.

And here's where the A-list went to university (no guarantees about Tinder though)